[rfu-membership] Scheduling notes

[Andrew Ó Baoill]

Below is a report one some aspects of our schedule, with a proposal  
and request (which are flagged in bold).

I have sent a report to our membership on various aspects of the  
station. One item is scheduling, where I note that we have 12 empty  
hours from 8am-2pm on weekdays, and 8 on Saturdays, and I'm  
encouraging members to find people to fill those slots.

An area I'm working on is sourcing public affairs content to fill the  
afternoon/early evening automation slot, something we agreed a few  
meetings ago. At present I have Zara Radio set up to repeat some  
content through the 4-8pm slot in 1- or 2-hour blocks, which should  
work as most days we only have 1-2 unscheduled hours during this period.

At the time we said that we wouldn't put these automated shows in the  
schedule, as in some cases they'll be playing during scheduled times  
of local shows (and so will only be hard when those shows don't show  
(no pun intended) and so as not to discourage people from applying  
for empty slots.

PROPOSAL: SEPARATE PAGE FOR AVAILABLE SLOTS
I wonder if membership might consider another approach: include these  
shows in the schedule, but maintain a separate page of currently  
available slots which could include details of slots we are  
particularly interested in filling.

One concern I have is that under the terms of our license we are  
required to be on air for 36 hours a week, for at least 5 hours on  
each of 6 days. There is also currently some ambiguity about  
requirements for locally-originated programming, possibly up to 8  
hours each day. In building out our schedule I would like to  
prioritize additions and substitutions that ensure we are able to  
meet these requirements on an ongoing basis, including when a  
proportion of volunteers don't appear for their shows. On paper we  
should currently be compliant, even with a conservative definition of  
'locally originated' but some day's it's a little close to the wire,  
particularly if people don't do scheduled shows: Saturday currently  
has 7 hours of scheduled local shows, Tuesday and Thursday have 8,  
Wednesday has 11. [Friday has 13, Sun and Mon each have 15.]

REQUEST: PROCESSES TO ENCOURAGE NEW MEMBERS TO HIGH-PRIORITY SLOTS
If membership could develop processes to encourage new members to  
consider slots on Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and also for  
morning-time hours any week day, that would be very helpful.



Andrew Ó Baoill
Station Manager
WRFU-LP, Urbana 104.5FM
http://www.wrfu.net andrew at funferal.org
(217) 344-2536 (studio)